Why were the lights so bright? Chitli looked up from the sitting spot on the shuttle, he had dozed off for a moment! Next to him, crammed shoulder to shoulder, was his mentor and a temple guard. There was little room in the shuttle, as it was made for not the transportation of live people, but for dead ones. Chitlipotonqui rubbed at his eyes, looking out the barely transparent window in the slidy door in front of them. They were going down, the clouds movement foreshadowed it. "Wait, what about survivors? We can't fit any of them in here, it's crammed as is." Chitli had spoken out to no one in particular, thinking aloud. "There aren't any." The temple guard had said solemnly, a hint of sadness in his voice. Chitlipotonqui kept his beak shut for the remainder of the descent, the eerie silence flooding the room, until finally broken by his mentor. "Around fifteen to twenty Avians were here when they were ambushed by the tribalistic Florans, we'll be lucky to fit all of them in one go, we may have to do two trips. Kluex grant them their wings, for their deaths must have been grounding and humiliating." "Florans it was, then... at least the temple guard could hold them off if they still lurked. But something wasn't right, here, that prayer didn't make much sense. Was it a blunder on his mentors part, or did he mean it to sound like that?" Chitli had thought to himself, now fully aware of his surroundings. The shuttle touched down, finally. It was a jungle planet, not unlike Avos. There was a stench in the air that stopped its beauty, filling the shuttle as the door slid open. It was of rotting corpses... when you don't use the oils on the bodies, they right awfully smell like that. At least his training and preparation made it so he didn't throw up, at least, immediately. His elders stepped out first, rightfully so, as is Qustulian tradition, and Chitli followed. However, it wasn't the amount of bodies, nor the smell that made Chitlipotonqui throw up his afternoon Poached Avesmingo, it was the lack of... only four bodies remained, torn to shreds, missing limbs, beaks, talons, and tailfeathers; the rest had been carried off by the tribals. Then, he woke up, his feathers ruffled and a heavy panting coming from his beak.
